Elinor Pruitt Stewart

 as Jefferson's Farmer-Citizen

Except for the occasional paragraph devoted to Sacajawea’s role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, women and their contribution to the settlement of the American frontier are largely absent from the history books I grew up studying.  Elinore Pruitt Stewart’s excerpts from Letters of a Woman Homesteader are a reminder that women did play a critical role in the development of farming culture in the West.  Stewart’s letters, in particular, provide us with a glimpse into the life of a woman who embodied the virtues endorsed by Thomas Jefferson and entwined in farming mythology. 

Elinore Pruitt Stewart operates a hay maker at her ranch in Burntfork, located in Sweetwater County, in 1925. It was not uncommon for ranch women of the time to help with field work in addition to keeping house and rearing children. (Courtesy of Sweetwater County Historical Museum) http://trib.com/elinore-pruitt-stewart

In her letter dated January 23, 1913, Stewart writes Mrs. Coney “At the same time, any woman who can stand her own company, can see the beauty of the sunset, loves growing things, and is willing to put in as much time at careful labor as she does over the washtub, will certainly succeed; will have independence, plenty to eat all the time, and a home of her own in the end” (Kinkead, Funda, and McNeill 132).  This passage reveals the similarities Stewart had with the men who came west before her including a desire for land ownership and the security provided through self-reliance.  Stewart’s writing reinforces the idea that the quest for the American Dream isn’t gender specific.  Both men and women possessed the pioneering spirit that helped define our farming culture.

In the nineteenth and twentieth century, women willingly left the domestic sphere to improve their economic and social circumstances by homesteading the West.  Stewart’s desire to own her land independently of her husband supports the idea that women were capable of owning and operating their own farms.  Stewart goes further by expressing joy in this activity and writing about her pride in a successful harvest.

Thomas Jefferson writes "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds” (Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, 1785. ME 5:94, Papers 8:426).  Stewarts tie to the land she homesteaded in southwestern Wyoming is obvious and deep.  She loves the land and she loves farming.  Her maternal pride in her daughter’s ability to grow her own potato crop at the age of six represents a female agriculture legacy that should be more fully celebrated in American Studies.

As our text points out, the correspondence between Stewart and Coney occurred during a period in history that focused on the working conditions of women and children in industrial factories and was published as a book “within context of a national dialogue” (Kinkead, Funda and McNeill 130).  The work also contributes to a larger discussion about women succeeding and thriving independently on American farms. Literature about women in the American studies often represents them in stereotypical gender roles and farming today still remains a largely male dominated profession.  It is important to open the discussion to include the successes of female farmers as independent business owners and agricultural stewards. 

Works Cited

Kinkead, Joyce, Evelyn Funda, and Lynne S. McNeill. Farm: A Multimodal Reader. Southlake:Fountainhead, 2014. Print.